#1
Posted: 3/8/07 at 10:05pm
Talkin' Broadway is mixed -
"They don’t make fairy tales anymore quite like Prelude to a Kiss, the cosmic Craig Lucas heartwarmer that Roundabout is now reviving at the American Airlines, and that may be a good thing. Not, mind you, because the play isn’t a solemnly entertaining success (it is), or even because this production, as directed by Daniel Sullivan, could use a few extra sprinklings of magical dust (though that’s also the case). But it is strange how something once timely seems less timeless when the clock is no longer your immediate enemy.
...
Parisse often seems to be channeling Rita’s creator, Mary-Louise Parker, in all her quirky coldness, without tapping into the compassion and concern for others before herself that ostensibly attract Peter in the first place. The result is a Rita who’s not just unlikeable, which makes Tudyk’s job all the tougher, but isn’t so much afraid of life as afraid of everything. She does, however, excel at tapping into her inner mannishness; she’s far more convincing, in fact, as a dissolving septuagenarian than Mahoney, who carries neither the extinguishing spark of life nor the fear of death that ought to encourage him to fight for living at any cost. (His conversion into a young woman is similarly unbelievable; he recalls Parisse in no discernible ways.)
...
But Rebhorn and Bartlett emerge as both theatrical and romantic role models, finding warmth and honest humor in their interactions together and with Tudyk and Parisse that give the play heart it never quite finds elsewhere. If it’s not clear they were Peter and Rita once upon a time, they’ve learned in the intervening decades that love is a give-or-take, so you might as well give everything you can until you’re taken away."
"They don’t make fairy tales anymore quite like Prelude to a Kiss, the cosmic Craig Lucas heartwarmer that Roundabout is now reviving at the American Airlines, and that may be a good thing. Not, mind you, because the play isn’t a solemnly entertaining success (it is), or even because this production, as directed by Daniel Sullivan, could use a few extra sprinklings of magical dust (though that’s also the case). But it is strange how something once timely seems less timeless when the clock is no longer your immediate enemy.
...
Parisse often seems to be channeling Rita’s creator, Mary-Louise Parker, in all her quirky coldness, without tapping into the compassion and concern for others before herself that ostensibly attract Peter in the first place. The result is a Rita who’s not just unlikeable, which makes Tudyk’s job all the tougher, but isn’t so much afraid of life as afraid of everything. She does, however, excel at tapping into her inner mannishness; she’s far more convincing, in fact, as a dissolving septuagenarian than Mahoney, who carries neither the extinguishing spark of life nor the fear of death that ought to encourage him to fight for living at any cost. (His conversion into a young woman is similarly unbelievable; he recalls Parisse in no discernible ways.)
...
But Rebhorn and Bartlett emerge as both theatrical and romantic role models, finding warmth and honest humor in their interactions together and with Tudyk and Parisse that give the play heart it never quite finds elsewhere. If it’s not clear they were Peter and Rita once upon a time, they’ve learned in the intervening decades that love is a give-or-take, so you might as well give everything you can until you’re taken away."
